Moscow announced Wednesday that its military forces have seized two Ukrainian settlements – one located in the northeastern Kharkiv region and another in the southeastern Zaporizhzhia region, according to Russia’s Defence Ministry.
Ukrainian military officials and the nation’s most popular military monitoring blog questioned the validity of Moscow’s claims.
The Russian Defence Ministry stated its troops had gained control of Hraniv in the Kharkiv region near the Russian border, as well as Vozdvyzhivka in a heavily disputed area of Zaporizhzhia region.
Ukraine’s 14th Army rejected Moscow’s announcement, maintaining that Hraniv remains under Ukrainian military control.
“Units of the Defence Forces of Ukraine are reliably holding designated defensive lines, effectively repelling enemy offensive actions, and inflicting significant losses on them in personnel and equipment,” the unit posted on Facebook.
DeepState, a Ukrainian military blog that monitors both sides across the 1,250-km (775-mile) battle line using publicly available information, declared the Russian claim about Vozdvyzhivka’s seizure to be false.
The blog reported that while a contingent of Russian soldiers had temporarily entered the settlement earlier this month, they were either forced out or eliminated.
On Tuesday, the 14th Army also refuted the seizure of one of two settlements that Russian forces claimed to have taken in Sumy region, a border territory where Moscow says it seeks to establish an expanded buffer zone.
Russia, which controls approximately 20% of Ukrainian land, has maintained an extended military operation aimed at gaining full control of the eastern Donetsk region, declaring village captures on a weekly basis.
However, Ukraine’s military has reported in recent weeks that Russian progress has decelerated and its forces are in their most advantageous position in several months.
